Futurama: "Fry Am The Egg Man"Review

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Fry gets his very own version of Nibbler.

By Robert Canning

I really enjoyed "Fry Am The Egg Man," until the last act when things just sort of petered out. The silly vignettes of the opening gave way to an interesting conflict on a distant planet, only to deliver a relatively weak ending. Does the ending ruin the entire half hour? Not by much, but instead of being the classic it could have been, Thursday night's episode was only pretty darn good.

Again, the beginning of the episode had a number of silly and very funny bits that were loosely tied together. There was the funny visual of the pogo stick robots that had nothing to do with anything except for providing the funny visual of pogo stick robots. From there, we ventured into futuristic fast food with cheese on everything including the "froot" cups. The gags early on were funny and came fast. The farmer's market delivered more great sight gags and a cameo from the Amazonian women. They're presence gave Fry a chance to use my new favorite adjective: "I'm scare-roused." Breakfast the next morning with Leela's all-natural foods kept the pace and humor moving.

And up to that point, we still didn't even have a major plot for the episode. The jokes came fast and most were right on target. When Fry realized baby animals were growing inside the farm fresh eggs ("Scrambled infants" was another favorite from this episode. Thanks, Zoidberg.) he promised to care for one until the creature inside could hatch and enter this world. And then he would eat them. Of course, "You can't sit on something for a week and not fall in love with it." So when the animal hatched, Fry was determined to love it and nurture it, despite it being ugly and corrosive. This was reminiscent of Leela first falling for the rather destructive Nibbler, including the cutesy name: Mr. Peppy. Perhaps that's why Nibbler was left out of this story. But it didn't feel like a retread as the jokes had a different, more destructive tone, and you knew Mr. Peppy wasn't going to be sticking around.

When it was decided to return Mr. Peppy to his home world to repopulate his species, the episode took a turn. Instead of being welcomed, the comically Scottish inhabitants of the planet set out to kill the beast before it could multiply and kill their livestock. Again, the comedy and pacing stayed on track. The accents, the many Anguses, Leela's flirting, the aquariums of alcohol-- all were a treat. And Fry had another memorable line with, "You can tell a lot about a man by the rigidity of his shins," referencing the lead Angus' lack of a shinbone.

But the last act faltered. Instead of squeezing in more jokes, the writers had to fit in exposition explaining what's what and why's why. Sure, Amy's "jinkies" was cute, but the Scooby-Doo ending felt like a cop out. I couldn't tell you what would have been a better ending, but the one we got was uninspired and generic. "Fry Am The Egg Man" was three-fourths of a fantastic episode. And then we got Scooby-Doo'd.